Ours is the vision of the United Irishmen – Chris Hazzard

More than 200 years ago the United Irish banner was
unfurled here in Wexford and throughout the island as every effort was made to
smash the colonial ascendancy – an ancient régime propped up with penal laws,
rotten boroughs, and the lure of an English king’s shilling.

Inspired by revolutions in America and France, and
with Tom Paine’s ‘Rights of Man’ resonating in the streets of Belfast and
Dublin – Irish Republicanism was born as the United Irishmen infused a radical
blend of egalitarian reform, social justice and an unquenchable desire for
national sovereignty.

Comrades this is the radical heritage we must embrace
if we are to meet the challenges of building a truly new republic, where the
rights of Irish citizens trump the rights of international consortiums.

Where the complaints of the disenfranchised and the
downtrodden are no longer ignored, but are examined and removed.

There can be no doubt that the successive Irish
Governments have hollowed out the heart of the 1916 Proclamation, they have
stripped away the values embedded in the 1919 Democratic Programme.

Partition and the counter-revolution has achieved
nothing but a cycle of economic failure, emigration, inequality, and two
political states weighted against the rights of citizens – the interests of
Irish men, women and children.

Trust and confidence in the political system has been
shattered as a consequence of this disastrous mismanagement of the economy,
public services and state finances by the previous Fianna Fáil-led
administration and the inaction of the current government in delivering on
their promise of introducing political reform.

The Fine Gael and Labour approach to political reform
has been piecemeal, minimalist. It has been all spin, no substance; in their
own words it has been “deplorable.”

Sinn Féin demand political reform based on
sovereignty, democracy, accountability and transparency, national unity,
equality, and the empowering of local communities – an Ireland where the
citizens come first.

It is why we have launched our proposals for political
reform – real and enduring reform based on the egalitarian principles of social
justice and genuine democracy.

We believe these proposals have the potential to
fulfill an urgent need and desire among citizens to drag our political system
into the 21st Century. To once and for all eradicate the
sleaze, to obliterate the golden circles, and to discard the culture of
cronyism.

Ours is the vision of the United Irishmen, a vision
that demonstrates to the people of Ireland that our programme of reform is ripe
to answer the questions of today and a creed capable of adjusting to the wants
of tomorrow.

It is
then comrades, and only then, that we will finally see the Rising of the Moon.”